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Eye on F.C.C., TV and Radio Watch Words

The reverberations from this year's fiasco of a Super Bowl half-time show are reaching every corner of the broadcasting world, and not even the viewers of ''Masterpiece Theater'' are immune.

The producers of ''Masterpiece Theater,'' intent on staying in the good graces of a Federal Communications Commission increasingly vigilant for instances of indecency, took a step last month they never had before. They chose not to make available to PBS member stations an unexpurgated version of the critically acclaimed British series ''Prime Suspect,'' and instead sent out two edited versions: one with all of the salty language edited, and another with only some of the possibly offending words excised.

Taking similar cues from regulators, an Indianapolis radio station pre-empted words like ''urinate,'' ''damn'' and ''orgy'' from going out over the air during a recent broadcast of Rush Limbaugh's talk show.

And classic rock radio stations have felt compelled to prune their playlists, striking songs like Elton John's ''The Bitch Is Back'' and ''Bitch'' by the Rolling Stones.

Television and radio broadcasters say they have little choice but to practice a form of self-censorship, swinging the pendulum of what they consider acceptable in the direction of extreme caution. A series of recent decisions by the F.C.C., as well as bills passed in Congress, have put them on notice that even the unintentional broadcast of something that could be considered indecent or obscene could result in stiffer fines or even the revocation of their licenses.

''If you're asking if there has been overcaution on the part of broadcasters today, I think the answer is yes,'' said Jeff Smulyan, the chairman and chief executive of Emmis Communications, which owns 16 television stations and 27 radio stations in Chicago, Los Angeles, New York and other cities. ''Everyone is going to err on the side of caution. There is too much at stake. People are just not sure what the standards really are.''

The uncertainty over standards, Mr. Smulyan said, has convinced station executives to hire at least two paralegals whose responsibilities will include deleting potentially offensive material on live broadcasts before those words can be heard by the audience, using technology that delays the airing of those programs by an interval of several seconds.

Among those who will be subject to that legal backstop is the Chicago radio host known as ''Mancow,'' who mixes celebrity interviews with racier fare.

Michael J. Copps, an F.C.C. commissioner who has been one of the strongest critics of media companies, acknowledged that some broadcasters appeared to be overreacting. But, he said, ''I applaud the effort at self policing.''

He also disputed the notion that the commission's standards on indecency were too vague. ''I think most of the things we're dealing with right now are pretty clear, from the standpoint of being indecent,'' he said. ''There's enough stuff out there that shouldn't be on.''

Still, Mr. Copps said that the broadcasters themselves could resolve any ambiguities they perceive by drafting and adopting what he described as a ''voluntary code of broadcaster conduct.''

James P. Steyer, founder and chief executive of Common Sense Media, a nonpartisan organization that advocates better programming aimed at children and families, said that ''a few extreme, silly examples'' of media companies being perhaps too cautious were far preferable to what he considers the ''completely unregulated environment'' of the recent past.

Complaints about indecency on the airwaves are not uncommon in election years, although they often grow fainter once the first Tuesday in November goes by.

This year, the exposure of Janet Jackson's right breast during a Super Bowl halftime show seen by tens of millions of viewers provided something of a gift to a Republican administration seeking to shore up its standing with conservatives, as well as with those who complain that media companies have grown large in recent years while facing little government scrutiny.

Two recent rulings by the F.C.C. have had a particularly chilling effect on broadcasters. Last month, the agency proposed levying nearly $500,000 in fines on six radio stations owned by Clear Channel Communications for broadcasting a 20-minute snippet of Howard Stern's program dealing mostly with sexual talk. (Clear Channel has since stopped carrying Mr. Stern's program.)

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And in March, the commission overturned an earlier ruling and found that NBC had violated decency standards by broadcasting a single vulgarity uttered by Bono, the lead singer of U2, during the Golden Globes in 2003.

Meanwhile, the House passed a bill in March that would increase fines on transgressing broadcasters to $500,000 a violation, up to a maximum of $3 million, from $27,500 a violation.

In a petition filed last week with the F.C.C. protesting the Bono decision, PBS and its stations argued that the process of determining what might run afoul of the F.C.C. was both costly and time-consuming.

For example, on an internal Web site used by PBS executives, a station manager posed the question last month of whether WGBH, the public television station in Boston, should edit an episode of ''Antiques Road Show.'' The station manager was worried about displaying a photograph of a nude celebrity -- in this case, Marilyn Monroe, as depicted a half-century ago. It was only after reviewing and debating the footage that the show decided to let the image remain.

But in the case of ''Prime Suspect,'' the mystery series with Helen Mirren on PBS, the producers of ''Masterpiece Theater'' believed that more extreme action was warranted.

In the past, ''Masterpiece Theater'' has occasionally sent stations two versions of an episode -- one as it appeared on British television, and another that deleted a particularly strong expletive, said Rebecca Eaton, executive producer of ''Masterpiece Theater.''

But in response to the recent commission rulings, Ms. Eaton said, the producers decided to create a version of last month's episode that was more heavily edited for profanity than any in the past, as well as a version that received some lighter editing.

In a petition filed last month with the F.C.C., a group representing other media organizations objected to a portion of the Bono decision in which the commission said it would now consider any use of the vulgarity in question to have a sexual connotation, regardless of the context. (Bono used that graphic expletive as an adjective in accepting an award.) That directive, the petitioners wrote, had sent radio stations scurrying to remove or edit songs with profanities that involve ''neither sexual nor excretory references.''

A similar scouring has been going on at WABC Radio in New York, home to a stable of politically conservative talk-show hosts -- including Mr. Limbaugh and Sean Hannity. Phil Boyce, the station's program director, recently posted a sign on the control room door that urged his technicians not to resist the urge to press the so-called ''dump'' button, in which a host's words are pre-empted on tape delay before the audience ever hears them.

''You will never be criticized for dumping something that may not have needed to be dumped. But God forbid we miss one and let it slip up,'' Mr. Boyce wrote.

Last week, a WABC technician heeding that warning used the ''dump'' button to prevent the word ''parachute'' from being heard. The technician did so because a host had tripped over the second half of the word in a way that made it sound as if he had stepped in something offensive, Mr. Boyce said.

A similarly vigilant technician had his finger on the ''dump'' button at WIBC-AM, an Emmis station in Indianapolis, during its broadcast of Mr. Limbaugh's syndicated program on March 3 -- one day after Emmis informed its employees that the broadcast of material it deemed offensive could result in their suspension or firing.

In an e-mail message to the station's program director, the assistant program director wrote that the delay was used 11 times that day for Mr. Limbaugh's program. ''I can only guess we are erring on the side of safety given that I don't know of any instance a licensee has ever been fined or cited for airing Rush unedited,'' the assistant program director wrote, ''but we'll continue to do these cuts until we're directed otherwise.''